SF native Kathy Holly is head of the old-school class

Perhaps the most coveted classification in all of San Francisco isn’t “successful tech CEO” or even “real estate owner,” but rather “tried-and-true native.” After all, our breezy climate, stunning scenery and booming economy help make the Bay Area a region where many want to flock, which means it has become filled with mostly grateful transplants. Thus, a legit born-and-bred San Franciscan is rare indeed.

But every once in awhile, a local can stumble upon a native so old-school San Francisco that it reinvigorates one’s faith in this fair city. Kathy Holly is one of those natives.

Residents of Pacifica might know this singer, actress, musician, bandleader and cabaret artist from “Spotlight,” her monthly TV show on Pacifica Community Television, where she serves as host and interviews local performers and artists. Longtime diners may have attended her first Monday night of the month live music shows at Villa D’Este on Ocean Avenue near 19th, or caught one of her open-mike performances at the Italian-American Social Club in the Excelsior. Tour groups regularly attend special events featuring Holly, like her St. Patrick’s Day luncheon show at the United Irish Cultural Center, and select seniors on the Peninsula have been treated to her specially themed performances held at retirement communities. Additionally, hundreds of local parochial-school students have learned music history and performance from her.

Holly patches together gig after gig from her condo in Diamond Heights, tapping into her vast network of similarly driven performers so she’s able to survive and thrive in San Francisco.

“And you probably don’t know this,” said Holly over breakfast in the Mission District, “but my grandfather was mayor of San Francisco.”

I put down my tea. We’d been chatting for over an hour about the changes, good and bad, that she’s seen as a performing artist in San Francisco over the past seven decades. You’d have thought she would’ve led with the “my grandfather was the mayor” moment, but nope. Holly led with why she’s ticked off that there are so few old-school live-music venues anymore.

Holly’s grandfather was P.H. McCarthy, an Irish immigrant and labor leader who served as San Francisco’s mayor from 1910 to 1912. As the city’s leader, McCarthy was responsible for requiring city employees to join the union and, according to Wikipedia, he raised city workers’ minimum wage from $2 to $3 a day. He also insisted that city employees hold United States citizenship.

In digging through online Chronicle archives, I found a September 1977 article that noted that then-Mayor George Moscone introduced Holly — with a nod to her grandfather — at the kick-off of the 21st Francisco International Film Festival. Naturally, Holly performed for the Castro Theatre crowd.

Moments like these, an introduction by Moscone at the Castro more than 40 years ago, are all part of Kathy Holly’s deeply San Francisco roots. Holly simply shrugs off many of the experiences I found so extraordinary. She is focused on the present much more than the past. Her current passion is her work on a documentary about the disappearing piano bar.

Holly links the digital age with the decline in the regular live-music spots around the city in which she used to perform. San Francisco’s piano bars are all but closed (Martuni’s remains the holdout), and restaurants no longer employ live musicians for anything other than background music.

“The digital age came in, and people stay home,” she lamented. “The traffic in this city is horrendous, parking is expensive, restaurant and club managers feel music doesn’t bring business, and the scale of pay has gone way down.”

When Holly performs now, which is still pretty frequently, “it’s for people who are over 45 and 50.” She continued, “And 60 and 70… and beyond.”

In the 1970s and ’80s, when she wasn’t performing on the first Western cruise ships to China, Holly would be out in San Francisco seven nights a week. “Did anyone look at their phone?” she asked me. “No! We didn’t have phones. When I was growing up, we didn’t watch TV after dinner. We would play the piano. It’s an art that’s gone.”

Holly refers to herself as “an oldster,” but she doesn’t look or live like one. She’s quirky and funny and interested and in a very real sense, a San Francisco survivor. From her home on the hill, in which she rents out a room to help cover her mortgage, Holly keeps singing with a smile they can see from the back row. She’d never even consider leaving her heart anywhere else.

Beth Spotswood is a San Francisco native who grew up in Marin County and returned to San Francisco after college in the East. She spent four years as a backstage dresser for “Steve Silver’s Beach Blanket Babylon” before signing on as a website producer for KPIX.

Spotswood’s work has been featured on KPIX, SFist, San Francisco Magazine, 7x7 Magazine, Porchlight Storytelling Series, LitQuake, Muni Diaries and the Bold Italic. She was the 2011 Reader’s Choice for 7x7 Magazine’s Hot 20 Under 40 and completed classes at Second City Training Center in Chicago. A Mission District resident for 15 years, Beth lives with her husband and a cat named Pompey.